


my heart is housed in ironworks

by rarmaster



Series: don't you worry child [14]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Gen, kratos hate resonates with himself, kratos is forced to interact with an alternate version of himself. both of them hate this, one of them just hates it a lot more, ywkon kratos has SO much fucking beef with tos kratos lmfao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 18:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21462268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/pseuds/rarmaster
Summary: Getting separated from his friends, having a panic attack, and then having to deal with an alternate version of himself who, frankly, he loathes?Yeah, Kratos has definitely had better days.(DYWC)
Series: don't you worry child [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1414204
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> housekeeping: one of the kratoses here is from YWKON, which is a big xc2/tos crossover series i wrote, though i say crossover and mean "tos, except it has xc2's blade lore". specifically though this kratos is from an alternate version of ywkon (an, AU of an AU) which is rp shenangians involving him interacting with tos lloyd and tos sheena, so
> 
> yeah he's got a lot of beef with tos kratos

Kratos’ memories of the events leading up to this precise moment, he’ll admit, are a little unclear. He was traveling with his group, his companions, his friends (_companions a term that feels a little too distant, but friends somewhat too intimate and also incorrect, because if you pressured Kratos into putting an accurate pin on his feelings, he’d reluctantly admit that he’s adopted another handful of children_)—when all of a sudden he wasn’t anymore. He does not remember how exactly space shifted around him or why, he just remembers coming-to with his back slumped against a stony wall as if he’d been thrown there, and the tell-tell shimmer of gathered ether signifying a misalignment in reality is nowhere to be seen. Did he trip, fall, get thrown through one of those rips in the time-space continuum that he and his friends have been using to traverse the worlds? Or did something else happen?

Admittedly, Kratos does not have a lot of mental space right now to consider it. He gets to his feet, aching all over, and considers his predicament. Immediately, he hates it.

He’s in some sort of cave. The darkness of it is illuminated by the local flora, clumps of mushrooms on the floors, walls, ceilings, all glowing pale blue, and it is dark enough that even the meager glow of his own ether lines and core crystal cast a faint glow of red directly around him. The darkness around him is not the problem, though.

The problem is there does not appear to be a way out.

From the structure and shape of the walls, Kratos infers that this is a cave with only one entranceway, only one mouth out, but there’s a pile of large stones blocking said mouth. A cave-in must have happened at some point. From the way the stones are set, mushrooms growing cheerfully all over them, it must have been some time ago.

“Riku?” Kratos calls, pitching his voice as loud as he can. It echoes loudly throughout the enclosed space. “Shadow? Dave?”

He presses his ear up against the wall of rocks, listening. He can’t hear anything. “Riku?” he calls one more time, knowing Riku’s hearing to be the best of them all. His hands tremble against the rocks he holds his weight on. Still no response.

Kratos sucks in a breath, holds it for ten seconds, releases.

He is not claustrophobic, exactly. And this cave is wide enough that even Martel’s claustrophobia would not be triggered by it, he thinks. But even though this makes a poor cage in a traditional sense, Kratos still hates the feeling, the knowledge, the reality of _being trapped._

He has to get out.

Kratos hooks his fingers around each of the rocks before him in turn, tugging experimentally. None are loose, and all are much too large to for him to be able to count on moving. He tries anyway. A strained shoulder, a broken wrist?—he counts these things preferable to being _stuck here_. And he needs to work before the sirens going off in his mind completely rob him of common sense, anyway. He tugs, he pulls, throws his weight against a rock that juts out enough that just _maybe _he can unstick it via leverage. He blasts the wall with ether as strong as he can muster, but his ether is not strong enough, unamplified via an Aegis or another blade, to vaporize rock. And light isn’t exactly the element to look for, when one wishes to dislodge a large pile of rocks. Kratos wishes, not for the first time, that he was an earth blade like Presea or Martel.

He hacks away at the wall until he exhausts himself, and then collapses in a heap, panic and exhaustion both keeping air from entering his lungs properly, every inch of his skin jittery and nervous.

Time passes.

He doesn’t know how much.

This is not a cage, he reminds himself, over and over, as he glares at the mushrooms on the ceiling. This is not a cage, and no one is coming for you. That is good, because no one is going to hurt you. That is bad, because you will likely die in here, instead. This is not a cage. This is not a cage. This is worse than a cage.

The heart he never asked for pounds a constant, infuriating _tha-dump tha-dump tha-dump _against his ribs. He wishes it would _shut up._

Suddenly, there’s a shift in the surrounding ether. It suggests the preparation of a spell. It also tastes… familiar in a way the actual ether of this world does not, because whatever it is it is not ether as Kratos knows it. But _that _ether, that ether gathering to cast a spell? It isn’t ether, either, but it is something Kratos has _encountered _before.

Where? He can’t remember.

The ground shakes. The wall starts to shift. Kratos’ body drags him backward without his consent, and next thing he is really aware of he is against the back wall of the cave, sword out and body curled tight, because he knows that if he sits with all his limbs close to his body it is more difficult for anyone to grab him and _move him. _There’s enough ether around him and flowing through his veins to throw up an ether shield, which protects him from the explosion of rocks—

The dust settles. Kratos doesn’t breathe.

The alarm bells in his mind suddenly stop ringing as recognition of the man standing before him fills him instead with uncomfortable _horror._

“Oh,” the man says, as he comes to the same realization Kratos has.

The man standing across the cave, between Kratos and the exit, is _also Kratos._

The distance between them is too great and the cave dark enough that cataloging any exact differences will be difficult at best, in part because they have _very few _differences between them, but even from this distance Kratos can make out that the other Kratos in the room does _not _have ether lines, and the stone set in the other Kratos’ collarbone glows teal, not red.

Frankly, standing before the Architect, the god of Kratos’ world, some thousands of years before he becomes the Architect is much, _much _worse than standing before the Architect himself, in part because this Architect _still looks like Kratos._

Kratos makes a noise in his throat. Gets to his feet, but does not dismiss the sword. His fingers won’t unclench from it, the panic in his mind still roaring too loudly to allow him to be _defenseless. _The Architect—no, calling him that feels wrong. Aurion, then, since that’s the one piece of Kratos’ name he threw away the moment he knew he shared it with the man who made their world and then let it fall apart in his apathy, the man who _abandoned his own son because he was too cowardly to face his mistakes._

(_Kratos thinks of Lloyd, not his Lloyd, but the other Lloyd he got to know, the one from thousands of years in the past, the one from the Architect’s world, the one who called the Architect father even as he shaped the word with bitterness and sadness. The Lloyd who never spoke at length about his Kratos, and always made excuses for his actions whenever he did, even though _nothing _can excuse leaving the damn planet just so you don’t have to face your son._)

“Well, this is unexpected,” Aurion says, blinking a few times at Kratos. “I… knew we had been traveling through the multiverse, but I suppose I hadn’t anticipated seeing myself.”

_Fuck you, _Kratos wants to spit, but the words get lodged in his throat. Panic and restlessness still grip his lungs, and he knows himself well enough that unless he sees the sun or the stars again soon, it’s going to be days before he’s going to have a voice to speak with.

Kratos groans, voiceless, and dismisses his sword in a flash of red ether. He goes to sign _fuck you, _but opening on that will just start a conversation he doesn’t want to have right now, not while he’s this jittery and his body insists there is a threat hiding over his shoulder, pain of the likes he has not experienced for hundreds of years lurking just around the corner, waiting to jump out and hurt him again. Kvar is dead. He knows this, but thinking it doesn’t help, it never does.

Instead Kratos does something a little more productive.

_Have you seen Riku, or Shadow, or Dave? _he asks, spelling each of their names with his fingers because none of them have name-signs and Aurion wouldn’t know them, anyway. _Or Mythra, I suppose. We got separated._

It does not for a second occur to him that Aurion will not understand his signs at all. After all, it was Aurion that taught it to Kratos’ Mithos and Martel, who in turn taught it to him. What an ironic, terrible circle.

Aurion shakes his head. “No, I haven’t,” he answers. “I got separated from my group, as well…” He does not move any closer, which Kratos appreciates, though a part of him wonders belatedly how he can see Kratos’ signs at all, given the distance and the dim light. Blades have better eyesight than humans, though. And what was it Lloyd said his father was? An angel? Maybe they have better eyesight, too. Aurion hums, contemplative and tight, like he doesn’t like this situation and is looking for a distraction. “Dave, you said? Dave Strider?”

Kratos nods, confused.

“Jade’s friend,” Aurion muses.

Oh. Yes. Dave has mentioned a friend named Jade a lot. _You know her? _he asks.

“I was traveling with her,” Aurion explains. “I’ve met Mythra, too, briefly. And even if I hadn’t, I would have recognized her name. Alvis mentions her frequently.”

Kratos laughs, but it’s bitter. _Yeah, I think all of us know who the Aegises are._

Aurion blinks. “What was that word?” he asks.

Kratos blinks back, and then makes the sign for _Aegis _again. “Yes, that one,” Aurion says.

_A-E-G-I-S, _Kratos spells. Aurion’s eyes light up like he knows what it means at least.

“You have a word for that?” he asks.

Kratos nods, slowly, though he supposes it makes sense that Aurion’s world wouldn’t, or at least not in the way Kratos knows it. He also supposes it will be some thousands of years before Aurion either coins the word or waits until Mithos or Martel does it. Curious, now, he asks: _Do you have a sign for blade?_

Aurion shakes his head. “Whatever word that was, I didn’t understand it,” he says.

_B-L-A-D-E, _Kratos spells out. _What the Aegises are. What I am._

Well, what he _was, _at one point that he doesn’t really remember, but getting into the exact differences between a blade and a flesh eater is not something Kratos wants to do for someone who has no idea what either are. Also, if he thinks about the heart in his chest and how exactly he got it for more than a second he _is _going to spiral, and he absolutely does not want to have a panic attack in front of this alternate version of himself that he does not like much at all.

If Aurion doesn’t know what a blade is, and wants to ask, he doesn’t. Maybe he doesn’t care. It’s hard to tell, to be honest. Instead, Aurion asks: “Your name _is _Kratos, right?”

Kratos nods. And then, just to emphasize the difference between the two of them, he spells out _I-R-V-I-N-G, _because that’s the name he’s chosen.

There’s a second where Aurion—flinches, maybe, though it’s fast and immediately well hidden. Kratos recognizes that as grief, though. Of course it is. He knows that in Lloyd’s world, Anna is dead, and he knows who killed her—

It doesn’t matter.

_Can we get out of here? _Kratos asks.

“Oh. Yes,” Aurion says. He waits until Kratos has crossed the distance of the cave, and then, even still waits before he starts walking. “You weren’t in there long, were you?” he asks, and he sounds… concerned, or at least an attempt at it. Close up, Kratos wonders if his face is _always _this unreadable, or if something else is going on with Aurion. Based on what Lloyd has said…

_Don’t know, _Kratos signs, sharp, because thinking about this man’s relationship with Lloyd makes his ether boil and his blood burn.

And, maybe the snap of his wrists is too tense, or maybe he should just expect that if anyone’s going to notice how loud he’s being about his distress it’d be himself, because:

“Are you alright…?” Aurion asks, a second later.

No, he isn’t. But he knows that Aurion isn’t fucking asking because he cares, he’s asking for an _explanation. _It makes the anger in Kratos’ core burn hotter. He walks, instead of saying anything, because his trauma is _none of Aurion’s fucking business._

Aurion doesn’t correct the way he chooses to walk, so either he got it right or Aurion has as little of a clue on which direction actually leads _out _as Kratos does. Whatever. They’ll find an exit eventually, or another rip in the time-space continuum, Kratos is sure. Kratos just has to survive until then. The mushrooms are much more abundant out in the cave system itself at least, so it gets significantly easier to see, and knowing that there is an _eventual _way out of the caves is much better on Kratos’ psyche than being very definitively trapped.

He’s still jittery, though, mind insisting he check every potential pathway for oncoming threats. Only summoning his sword to hold, the cool of its metal and its weight in his hands, puts him even a little bit at ease (_and even then, he’s still checking pathways and corners_). Aurion doesn’t say anything about it, at least. In fact, Aurion doesn’t say anything at all.

Maybe it’s just common decency. If he’s aware that Kratos’ only way of speaking right now is his hands, and his hands are currently occupied, well. Never mind the fact it’s somewhat difficult to hold a lengthy conversation in sign while walking.

Kratos doesn’t actually think Aurion is being polite, though. And maybe _he _shouldn’t think much of it, because he knows he himself has bouts where talking is difficult even when it’s not an explicit nonverbal episode, but… Even still, something about the silence is pissing Kratos off.

He opens his mouth to say something, anything, maybe ask Aurion what he’s doing here and _where Lloyd is, _but the sound still gets caught at the back of his throat, painful and sharp, so he doesn’t. Kratos keeps his mouth shut and endures the silence, endures his thoughts spinning angrily in circles. He wants to ask Aurion why he’d leave his son. Why he’d _hurt _his son. What exactly possessed him to make him think that was a _good idea, _something that could be _excused. _Thinking about it makes Kratos feels like he’s going to be _sick _with his anger, and the paranoia crawling up his neck isn’t helping matters at all.

It isn’t long before they reach open air, at least. The cave system lets out near the top of a mountain, depositing them high above a forest below amongst blue sky and chirping birds. The ledge is some ten meters across, curving off to the left of the cave system in a downwards path. Kratos immediately collapses in the middle of the ledge, fingers finding wet green grass and running over it obsessively, desperately needing the reminder that he’s free he’s free _he’s free. _The birdsong and the shining sun do wonders, and though the anger in him doesn’t abate—he is distinctly, uncomfortably aware of Aurion’s gaze fixed on him, burning against his skin—the panic and gripping paranoia does start slipping away.

Kratos breathes, long and deep. He’s alright.

“Take a moment to rest,” Aurion instructs. “I’ll look around and see if I can find one of those portals.”

Kratos shoots upright to send a glare at Aurion’s back. First of all, he didn’t need to sound so _condescending. _Second of all… what the _fuck_? Taking cursory stock of the ambient ether—or mana, in Aurion’s case—should make it clear there’s at least not one immediately nearby. Does Aurion intend to descend the entire mountain searching for a portal he isn’t going to find? And just _leave _Kratos here?

If he were anyone else, Kratos would tell him to go ahead, trusting him to come back once he’s looked and found either nothing or something. But with Aurion? He can’t trust that.

Especially not when this stinks too much of a man just trying to escape a situation he doesn’t want to deal with.

“No,” Kratos makes himself say, and it’s like shattered glass in his throat for how much it hurts, but he gets it out. Aurion stops walking, but the bastard _doesn’t fucking turn around, _so Kratos has to keep talking even though it’s currently like agony, words getting stuck and scraping their barbs against his tongue when he finally manages to get them out. “Stay. I don’t want to get separated.”

“I would come back,” Aurion says, simply. He still doesn’t turn around. “It would just be a better use of our time—”

No, no, no, and Kratos _cannot _physically say another word with his mouth. So he pushes himself to his feet and marches across the distance between him and Aurion, snapping his fingers in front of the man’s face until he has his attention.

_Coward, _he signs, with furious hands. _Don’t run away from this._

Aurion makes a face somewhere between offended and uncomfortable. “I’m… not running away,” he protests. He hasn’t moved an inch, like he’s completely unbothered by how in-his-space Kratos is, even though Kratos himself is burning with the proximity. He’s only turned his head to look at Kratos, besides, his body still turned away.

_Yes you are, _Kratos argues._ Of course you are. That’s all you fucking do._

Aurion’s expression swings towards offended. “You’re… one to talk,” he says, tone sharp and knowing. Kratos snarls.

_I’m not like you, _he insists. _I wouldn’t leave the entire _planet _just to avoid having a sincere conversation with my son. And I wouldn’t fucking attack my son, either._

“I…” Aurion blinks, confused and… angry. That’s definitely anger, in the set of his jaw, in the furrow of his brow. The stubborn kind of, dig-your-heels-in kind of anger, much unlike the righteous fury that burns under Kratos’ skin right now. “I beg your pardon,” Aurion says, scowling.

Kratos fumbles with the explanation, because everything about how he knows what this man has done is a long one, and he’s too angry for that, especially when he can’t stop his hands from trembling enough to sign clearly. He grits his teeth and hisses. There’s one other option here, one that would be faster, more efficient, even if he doesn’t like it.

Whatever. Aurion deserves a little suffering. Kratos will just buckle down and suffer it, too.

Normally, he’d ask permission, but he doesn’t have the patience for that, not with _this _man. Kratos just grabs Aurion by the hand—even though the contact of skin against skin is like hell on his senses, jarring and bad and stirring up too many uncomfortable memories—and then puts that hand on his core crystal, which _also _is a sensation that makes his skin want to leap off of his body and his core bury itself in his toes. He closes his eyes and _concentrates, _reaching for pathways that aren’t supposed to work for him anymore but do anyway.

It’s nothing like resonating with Anna, nothing like how easy and effortless and accidental that was. This is like fire burning his hands, like dragging a boulder up a mountain, Aurion’s mana meeting Kratos’ ether and then wrapping itself around Kratos’ throat.

But the resonance takes. If Aurion is feeling surprise, Kratos does not register it under his own fury.

“What did you,” Aurion begins, but Kratos doesn’t listen.

Executing a memory transfer in the real world and not in the dreamspace is very difficult, it turns out. Maybe that is because Kratos is not an Aegis, maybe that is because Aurion is unwilling, who knows. But after a few fumbling milliseconds Kratos manages it anyway, connection established with Aurion’s mind, the memories he wants dug up and passed over—

_Lloyd, an alternate version of his son, eyes wide with terror and his words all stammer-y just because Kratos thoughtlessly grabbed him by the wrist and twisted, forced his hand away, held on a second too long,_

_Sheena, furious and explaining that Lloyd’s Kratos left, left the entire planet, and Lloyd isn’t mad but she thinks he should be, doesn’t get why he isn’t, because that’s fucked up,_

_Mithos, tripping over his words, voice high and tight in the way it only gets when something has thoroughly shaken him, trying to articulate what he saw in the dreamspace, trying to articulate Lloyd’s nightmare, Lloyd’s memories, but unable to quite pin down the words because it doesn’t make any sense to him, so he puts his hand on Kratos’ core crystal and,_

_It’s Kratos, but it’s not Kratos, he’s seeing himself but it’s Lloyd’s voice that shouts when the knee connects with his stomach, Lloyd’s voice that screams at the hand on his arm on the blow that rings against his head, it’s Lloyd who,_

_Mithos’ memory, Lloyd poking a stick at a fire, head down and voice soft, Lloyd’s voice: “He knew that to do what was needed, he'd have to be ruthless with me. So he was.”_

_And all of that is drowned in anger and anger and anger because Kratos does not even begin to understand how things could have possibly fallen apart that he would do that to his own son, and—_

He’s shoved back suddenly, a hand meeting his sternum and pushing, and Kratos staggers, scrambles, holds his balance but does not keep a hold on the panic that roars in his core, blotting out all of the anger and confusion and _indignance _that otherwise fills the emotion bleed. Kratos bites down the horror and reminds himself _he’s fine, this is fine, _and—

“What did you _do_,” Aurion demands, and the worst fucking part of it is when that anger comes from his _driver, _Kratos withers a little underneath its weight.

Kratos does his best to keep his shoulders straight, shakes his hands once and then again to get the tremors out of them, and signs slowly so he can be understood despite the trembling: _I met your son, _he explains. _And I hate you for how much you hurt him._

Aurion does not look comfortable at all, but he says: “That’s not… any of your business.”

_He’s my son, too! _Kratos signs, heart pounding with his fury, the emotion bleed sick and heavy where Aurion’s self-righteousness meets Kratos’ anger. _And _I _had to deal with the fallout! _Why _would you do that to him!? Why would you—_

“I did what I had to,” Aurion says, tone emotionless and the emotion bleed quite suddenly… the same. There’s just a big wall of nothing where emotions were before, Kratos’ anger echoing in a vacuum, even though the resonance is intact.

It doesn’t matter.

_There _had _to have been a way to reach your end goal without personally, physically, hurting Lloyd! _Kratos argues, and if he didn’t need his hands to sign, if the thought of another—even brief—second of his skin against someone else’s didn’t make him want to puke, he’d punch Aurion in the face.

“You don’t understand.”

_I understand that you’re shitty fucking father._

“Yeah. I guess I am.”

That’s it. That’s fucking it. The roar of nothing where there should be emotion is going to make Kratos sick, and he can’t see straight he’s so mad anyway. He finds the place in his core where resonances are kept and snaps the one with Aurion, staggering a little under its lack but ultimately grateful when it’s just him in his own head again, even though for those last few minutes it might as well have just been him in there for the whole lot of nothing Aurion was sending him.

_No wonder you left, _Kratos says, laughing bitter and silent. _Maybe it’s better that you did._

Aurion scowls at him, though it’s without much venom or effort. The man still hasn’t moved an inch from where he stands other than when he shoved Kratos away, earlier. His hands hang at his sides, his posture like a stone.

“That… still doesn’t make any sense to me,” he says, slow. Where there should be confusion there is nothing, the words all monotone. “I haven’t left.”

Doesn’t mean he won’t. Doesn’t mean he’s ever been there for Lloyd, even though he should be.

_When was the last time you saw Lloyd? _Kratos asks.

“Don’t,” Aurion says, short and sharp. “I can’t—be with him, right now. If I travel with him, then Mithos will—” He breaks off there. Scowls. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, to the air over Kratos’ shoulder, eyes unfocused. “Alvis said that I can be returned to the moment I left, and then it will all be fine. I’m doing everything I can to keep Lloyd safe.”

_Safe, _Kratos argues, _but not happy. _

(_He hates that this is an argument he’s had with Anna, before._)

“That’s all I can ask for, right now,” Aurion says, resolute.

Kratos scoffs. He doesn’t want to be here anymore, doesn’t want to deal with this, doesn’t want to think about what he’s going to do to this man if he has to suffer his presence for even a second longer. Maybe it _would _be best if they split up.

Before he can suggest anything of the sort, the ambient ether spikes, reality shifts, and then there’s Mythra.

“Sorry about that!” she apologizes, bright, tossing her hair over her shoulder and rolling her eyes. “_Someone _fucked up the last world transfer. And by someone, I mean Alvis, and by fucked up I mean I think he set this up for you two and I’m honestly gonna punch him in the face for it.” Her eyes flicker over to Kratos, expression concerned. “You okay, Kratos?” she asks.

And that? That is the question of someone actually concerned.

Well, he’s better now that she’s here, so: _I’m alright, _he tells her. Before it can even occur to him that maybe she won’t understand, she nods like she does. That’s a relief.

“Cool, cool,” she says. “I’ll definitely punch Alvis in the face for you once I see him. Come on.” She nods to the still-open portal next to her. “Let’s get you reunited with everyone else.”

Aurion takes a step forward, but Mythra stops him. “No, no, not you. This portal’s for _him_,” she nods at Kratos. “_You, _I’m sending elsewhere.”

“Ah,” Aurion says.

_Thank you, _Kratos says.

Mythra grins, sharp. “Sure thing! Now get on in there, even if I could hold this open forever I really don’t want to.”

Gratefully, Kratos ducks through.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kratos reunites with Team M.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> normally, DYWC fics aren't multichap, but uh. while i was laying in bed right after posting it this whole scene came to me and it's not even that _exciting_ it's just my dumb kids interacting about nothing, but. well. here you are!

Mythra’s portal deposits Kratos on a beach. The sand is soft and picturesque, the waves gentle and blue like the sky above, the sun sitting near midday. There’s a large mountain range rising behind Kratos, but his attention is rather on the two kids and singular hedgehog on the beach, on the way Riku calls “Kratos!!” immediately, like he’s delighted and relieved.

Kratos turns to the boy bounding across the sand towards him like he’s run on beaches his entire life. Riku skids to a halt a respectable distance from Kratos, still grinning. “Hey, there you are! We were worried,” he says. He looks Kratos up and down, then asks, cautious: “Can I hug you?”

Kratos immediately, sharply, shakes his head no.

“Okay!” Riku puts his hands up and takes a step back, even though he was standing plenty far away. “I’m just—happy to see you, is all, like I said we were worried.”

“Yeah man we weren’t really sure when or if we were gonna see you again since all this shit is so unreliable,” Dave adds, floating over a couple inches off the ground, like he’s given up on dealing with the sand. “Didn’t really have an idea of how we were gonna go looking for you, either. Good thing Mythra’s got us covered.”

“We really gotta bully them into setting up a way we can text or call each other, seriously,” Riku says, and Dave nods and says “word”.

“Seriously, though, good to see you K-dude,” Dave says, then extends a hand towards Kratos, curled into a fist. “Fist bump?”

Kratos shakes his head again. Shadow sends a look his direction, waves when he sees he has Kratos’ attention, but otherwise says nothing. If Kratos had to guess, he’d guess that Shadow’s worried, but figures Dave and Riku have it handled, so he’s going to stay out of it. Shadow’s awkward with people, even them, even after the time they’ve known each other. Kratos doesn’t blame him, though. He’s pretty awkward with people, too.

If Dave squints at Kratos, Kratos can’t see it, given Dave’s shades. But he gets the sense of worry, anyway. “You good, man?” Dave asks.

Kratos shakes his head. Then scowls. Shrugs. He’ll _be _okay, probably before long, his nerves having mostly settled by this point, the only remnants of earlier panic being the fact his voice has still fucked off to who knows where. And he’s still. _Angry. _Really angry, if he has to think about interacting with that alternate version of himself at all. Self-righteous bastard. He was infuriating!

Anyway. _I don’t suppose any of you speak sign? _Kratos asks.

Dave and Riku exchange looks. Dave shrugs, and Riku grimaces.

“Uh, didn’t quite catch that,” Riku says, nervously scratching at the back of his neck.

“Yeah the Mayor did some of those hand signals shit but whatever he did must be a completely different dialect,” Dave adds, nodding. “Uh.”

“Speaking’s difficult right now?” Shadow asks, having approached just enough to be heard, but not enough to crowd, which Kratos appreciates. He nods at Shadow’s question. Shadow hums, understanding but also like he’s just considered a problem. “None of us have a paper and pen, do we?”

“I _might _have something in my sylladex,” Dave says, with a tone that suggests he’s not sure and is going to have some difficulty finding it if so.

“It’s fine, he can just use my phone,” Riku says, already pulling said phone out of his back pocket. He pokes at the device for a bit, then hands it over to Kratos. “Just tap the letters to type, if the keyboard goes away just tap the screen again, and if the screen goes dark press that button on the bottom.” Riku’s very careful when he hands the phone over, so their fingers don’t brush, and even if they had Kratos thinks he would have been alright, just for that moment, since he would have initiated the contact.

Kratos considers the screen long enough to understand it, then considers it longer as he tries to figure out what to say.

_I will be okay. Need some time to decompress, is all. Interaction is going to be somewhat difficult for a little bit. _He hesitates there, wonders if he should tell them about the other Kratos he interacted with—but it’ll be a conversation too difficult to have in this manner, and he’s not even sure what to tell them, anyway, considering how little they know, and how long the explanation is. Then again, all of them seem to have some kind of involvement with parallel universes or at least, alternate selves? Still…

_I would rather not talk about it right now, _he finishes typing, then hands the phone back to Riku.

Riku reads it aloud for everyone else’s benefit, then nods as soon as he’s finished.

“Yeah, no problem,” Riku says. “Stopping here for a while isn’t a big deal. Nice place to hang out, you know? Honestly if we’re gonna be here a while, I’m gonna go swim. I’ve missed swimming.” He hands his phone back to Kratos. “In case you need it,” he says.

Riku heads off, and Kratos sits down where he is, running his fingers through the sand because it’s a nice, grounding reminder that he’s not in a cage, anymore. Dave plops down on the ground with Kratos, legs crossed and hands gripping his heels.

“Hey,” Dave says. “You feeling ‘would-like-something-else-to-think-about’ kind of decompress right now or you feeling ‘complete-silence-no-Dave-don’t-do-something-like-rap-at-me’ because if you want a distraction I’ve got a new rap I’m working on if you wanna hear it? Either way’s chill my dude just thought I’d offer.”

Kratos doesn’t want to mess with Riku’s phone just to tell Dave that sounds fine, so he just sends Dave a thumbs up. “You wanna hear it? You sure?” Dave presses, like he’s surprised, and Kratos nods.

Shadow scowls, arms folded over his chest. “Please, just not the one about potatoes.”

Dave gasps in mock offense, hand over his chest and everything as he looks at Shadow. “What man are you kidding, the french fry rap is a goddamn classic, Kratos has _gotta _hear that one, it wasn’t even the one I was talking about but I’m gonna rap it now you ready?”

And then he does. Kratos doesn’t even know what a french fry is, but Dave’s rap tells him, and it’s silly but it’s _good _and Kratos laughs along with—which Dave doesn’t seem to mind, at least—and thinks that he wishes Anna were here, because she would absolutely adore this. Shadow, for all he complains, ends up sitting down with them and spending the next hour suggesting topics for Dave to rap about. It’s fun. And it’s the only thing Kratos thinks about, which is a nice bonus.

By the time Riku’s back from his swim—sopping wet and bemoaning his lack of dry clothes, at least until Dave dumps some of his own out of his sylladex (_which don’t _quite _fit Riku, but are good enough until Riku’s clothes dry_)—Kratos is feeling much more relaxed and settled in his skin. So long as he doesn’t think about the other Kratos…?

Well. He’s fine.


End file.
